- Jun 9, 2019
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[SOLVED] Would it be a bad Idea to use the 3700x on the crosshair vi hero?
- Thread starter EmptyCoconut
- Start date
Solution
Darkbreeze
Retired Mod
- Jun 24, 2014
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That board supports up to 8 cores, and has BIOS flashback, so it should be updateable without a CPU if necessary. X470 would be a MUCH better option though, as X370 does not have as good of memory support OR power phase, as most comparable X470 models.
ElectrO_90
Splendid
- Apr 17, 2007
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Generally you cannot flash a bios without a cpu
It should be fine, since its not drawing any more power.
It should be fine, since its not drawing any more power.
drea.drechsler
Champion
- Oct 16, 2017
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In the sense of under-utilizing a board with a very powerful VRM, I do believe it a bad idea to put a 3700X on it.
GamersNexus power consumption charts
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3489-amd-ryzen-5-3600-cpu-review-benchmarks-vs-intel
R9 3900X at 4.3G draws 147w
R7 2700X at 4.2G draws 194w
If running a 3700 or 3800 is a bad idea then it's also a bad idea running a 2700 on it.
GamersNexus power consumption charts
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3489-amd-ryzen-5-3600-cpu-review-benchmarks-vs-intel
R9 3900X at 4.3G draws 147w
R7 2700X at 4.2G draws 194w
If running a 3700 or 3800 is a bad idea then it's also a bad idea running a 2700 on it.
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Darkbreeze
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Yes, you can. On any board with BIOS FLASHBACK or similar feature, you can absolutely flash a motherboard with no CPU installed. That's the WHOLE point of BIOS flashback.
Darkbreeze
Retired Mod
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B450 has, at most, a 4 power phase design. It CAN work for the lower end Ryzen 3000 processors but I would not use it with any of the 8 core or higher models. They already have trouble with the high core Zen1 parts. I would not recommend anything less than X470 for Ryzen 3000 series, especially on a high core model.
And that's without even factoring in memory support and compatibility, which was terrible on first gen boards, better but still not great on second gen chipset boards, but has improved over time with more recent BIOS updates.
- Jul 9, 2019
- 7
- 1
- 15
ASUS Crosshair Hero VI is one of three motherboards from X370 that will be able to run all 3000 series processors and all of 4000 series processors (next year). The other two are Asrock Taichi and ASUS Crosshair Hero Extreme but this larger than an ITX board. So there's two ITX ones.
The Crosshair Hero VI also has BIOS Flashback, meaning you don't need a CPU or display connected, you just need a USB stick and to follow the instructions correctly. And whatever you do, don't interupt the process while it's patching/updating. Expect some bugginess in BIOSes until all the kinks are worked out, but that's the same with X470 and even X570.
It's VRM is fine. It can handle 300A, but at 200A it's at peak efficiency at 90%. None of these processors will get close to that. Maybe AM5 will, but it will be 5nm instead of 7nm.. so the power consumption and wattage might actually go down. Unless there's a 32 core part or something. I'm talking about under regular air/water cooling, not extreme liquid nitrogen overclocking. See this chart/thread.. it's well made, well researched and is easy to visualise. If you want to use X370 and 3000 series 12 or 16 core, just stay away from MSI or Gigabyte.
chart -
https://i.redd.it/dzbx9fdkxv731.png
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/c7qj5e/am4_vcore_vrm_ratings_to_help_you_decide_on_a/
edit - There's a few other motherboards compatible for X370, it's been a while since I looked at it, but you get the general idea.
The Crosshair Hero VI also has BIOS Flashback, meaning you don't need a CPU or display connected, you just need a USB stick and to follow the instructions correctly. And whatever you do, don't interupt the process while it's patching/updating. Expect some bugginess in BIOSes until all the kinks are worked out, but that's the same with X470 and even X570.
It's VRM is fine. It can handle 300A, but at 200A it's at peak efficiency at 90%. None of these processors will get close to that. Maybe AM5 will, but it will be 5nm instead of 7nm.. so the power consumption and wattage might actually go down. Unless there's a 32 core part or something. I'm talking about under regular air/water cooling, not extreme liquid nitrogen overclocking. See this chart/thread.. it's well made, well researched and is easy to visualise. If you want to use X370 and 3000 series 12 or 16 core, just stay away from MSI or Gigabyte.
chart -
https://i.redd.it/dzbx9fdkxv731.png
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/c7qj5e/am4_vcore_vrm_ratings_to_help_you_decide_on_a/
edit - There's a few other motherboards compatible for X370, it's been a while since I looked at it, but you get the general idea.
Darkbreeze
Retired Mod
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Sorry man, but you're talking out your beer can there. They almost couldn't fit THIS generation into the constrictions of the EEPROM as it is, and had to make a lot of allowances in order to do so. It's improbable that they'll be able to it again, besides which, it's not supposed to even be a thing until after the point at which AMD has said they would maintain compatibility anyhow.
https://www.techpowerup.com/257201/...ail-amds-zen2-backwards-compatibility-promise
And, NOBODY has tried to say that those will be coming along next year. The EARLIEST we'd see these MIGHT be 2021. Probably it will be more like 2022, but '21 is possible. Consider, those are going to be 5nm process, not 7nm like Ryzen 3000, at least, according to early speculation, because obviously there is absolutely NOTHING concrete to base that on whether I say it, you say it or WCCFTech says it. When something on a reputable site comes along, then we can look at it again.
Regardless, being ABLE to run something, and doing it well or in a worthwhile manner, are two distinctly different things. An MSI 970 Gaming could technically run an FX-9590 too, and a lot of people have done it, but they have also ALL had MAJOR problems with power delivery, VRM throttling, core temperatures and board failures from thermal fatigue. It's a bad idea, period, to run a CPU with a high TDP or a whole bunch of cores, on a motherboard with a limited power delivery design and that's without even getting into the fact that the memory compatibility problems on X370 and B350, BIOS improvements aside, are not worth the trouble.
https://www.techpowerup.com/257201/...ail-amds-zen2-backwards-compatibility-promise
And, NOBODY has tried to say that those will be coming along next year. The EARLIEST we'd see these MIGHT be 2021. Probably it will be more like 2022, but '21 is possible. Consider, those are going to be 5nm process, not 7nm like Ryzen 3000, at least, according to early speculation, because obviously there is absolutely NOTHING concrete to base that on whether I say it, you say it or WCCFTech says it. When something on a reputable site comes along, then we can look at it again.
Regardless, being ABLE to run something, and doing it well or in a worthwhile manner, are two distinctly different things. An MSI 970 Gaming could technically run an FX-9590 too, and a lot of people have done it, but they have also ALL had MAJOR problems with power delivery, VRM throttling, core temperatures and board failures from thermal fatigue. It's a bad idea, period, to run a CPU with a high TDP or a whole bunch of cores, on a motherboard with a limited power delivery design and that's without even getting into the fact that the memory compatibility problems on X370 and B350, BIOS improvements aside, are not worth the trouble.
- Jul 9, 2019
- 7
- 1
- 15
Completely disagree. Keep in mind, I've only been in the game for 2 months. I've been an Intel user for the past 10 years. And have only recently switched (haven't built my system yet). But I've done a lot of catching up in the last 2 months, it's almost been like a full time job in terms of the catching up on so many things that have changed (like M2 drives), but I feel like I have a pretty good finger on the pulse at the moment. It's all become pretty predictable in the last few weeks and there's been nothing shocking since the release on July 7. Except for maybe the performance of the bang for buck CPU's (3600, 3700X) when it comes to the CPU's they are competing with and how little their power consumption is. The 3800X appears like it will be useless and the 3900X is powerful yet pretty decent in terms of power consumption.
Based on everything I've seen (and it's been so much, but I could quote charts or whatever if I needed to).. the AMD roadmap is..
Zen (1000 series, 12nm, X370), Zen+ (2000 series, 12nm+, X470), Zen 2 (3000 series, 7nm, X570), Zen 2+ (4000 series, 7nm+, X670) and then that will be the end of the AM4 platform. The end of DDR4 memory support. If this occurs in this way, it falls inline with AMD saying they will support AM4 until 2020.
And then the 5nm processors will start the following year with AM5 platform, DDR5 memory etc. I assume it will be called the 5000 series but who knows. These things are subject to change.. but for now it seems if one is to guess, it's as good as any. I guess there's a chance they skip 7nm+, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that, where as there's been charts that do indicate that they are doing that. If it occurs this way, the 4000 series will be the ones to hold on to long term, because they'll hold their value on the used market the best, since they'll be the most powerful/efficient CPU's for AM4.
In terms of the VRM, I don't think there's anything controversial or risky. These processors are using even less power than expected. I was very worried about this a few weeks ago, I even bought some expensive thermal pads.. but if anything it's gone the other way. The 7nm node means that power consumption is reduced.. the clock speeds are less than expected, and the overclocking is extremely poor. It's pretty much a max overclock straight out of the box, and the power consumption isn't even very high. The 3900X is using the same power (or slightly less) as 2700X despite 4 more cores. Good for those with cheaper motherboards, bad for those chasing Intel higher clock speeds. Lower end cheap junky boards should be careful with 12 or 16 core parts, but 8 and 6 core parts are fine with pretty much any board (except the very cheapest but even those DO work). The chart lays it out perfectly in terms of colour codes, and if anything is actually a bit on the conservative side. The person who made that chart, their info correlates with what I had discovered in my own independent research.
The chipset is pretty irrelevant in terms of memory speeds. The chipset is more to due with Sata, USB etc. The memory is all about the CPU itself since it's related to the onboard memory controller. The IMC paired with the microcode that the BIOS is running. The 3000 series CPU has a big IMC improvement, and can handle 3200-3600 easily, regardless of whether it's X370 or B450 or X570. There is minimal performance gain going from X370 to X570. Maybe 3-5% at best. Sometimes the older chipset is actually faster in certain situations. There still needs to be verification of this, in the real world with lots of different board makers but these are the early indications. This was also the trend of X370 vs X470. There's teething problems with BIOS right now but those will be ironed out regardless of whether you are using X370, X470 or X570. All are struggling with bugs right now, but all will be ironed out in a few months, the same way they were on 1000 and 2000 series CPU's.
It's a good point mentioning the space of the flash ROM of the BIOS. It is definitely an issue and a lot of motherboard makers messed up (by accident, or deliberately to entice people to always buy the latest thing). Believe it or not, there's even some X570 boards that use 16MB BIOS capacity. What excuse can there be for that? It's a $1 part vs a $2 part, and since it was made during this year, they can't say they weren't aware of it. The X370 Asus Crosshair board I mentioned has this problem and I suspect Asrock Taichi X370 does as well. The X370 Taichi also has a problem of lower memory speeds that can't be fixed due to trace layout on the PCB. But it will work, as long as you don't buy super expensive RAM thinking you'll get high speeds. It also has the best VRM of any X370 board. The X470 Asus Crosshair board has 32MB BIOS and solves this problem. But the motherboard makers are working around this problem of limited BIOS capacity and 16MB BIOS will still work. They are trimming down the BIOS (MSI even made a Lite version that has an uglier UI). Some boards are losing RAID support, and also losing support from the very old CPU's. But if you don't use RAID and if you're looking at running a 2000 or 3000 series CPU, you won't be affected. It's an unfortunate situation and they are having to work to trim out the bloat.. but the motherboard will still be usable. It's just more work on the BIOS makers in order to squeeze things in and make them fit.
This has all been a hypothetical for me in the last month, I've watched a lot of Buildzoid videos trying to figure out how all of this works. But now since July 7, there's starting to be some real world examples and testing. We are in the habit of Intel for the last 10 years, and needing new motherboards every 2 years, but AMD is breaking that trend. And the consumer is benefiting from it. It's just a shame that the motherboard makers couldn't have thought things through a bit better. On X370 boards Gigabyte and MSI really cheaped out on VRMs. Pretty much all of them cheaped out on the BIOS ROM because they aren't used to trying to fit so many versions of CPUs on one BIOS. But just in the last 24 hours I've seen some videos running the 3700X on the cheapest A320 boards, and they do work. The 3600 could pretty much run on anything. A B450 Tomohawk is the recommendation a lot of people are doing for bang for buck plus solid performance. But for a high end board, it seems ASUS Crosshair VI (X370), most of the X470 boards, or any of the X570 boards will work, but the X570 boards are ridiculously over engineered and super expensive. The chipset fan doesn't work well either, except on the MSI boards. Because it's starved of airflow due to the GPU sitting right above it. And that's without factoring in dust that might accumulate in future years. It runs 10 degrees hotter and a lot louder, due to it's positioning and cramping of space. Some of them are vibrating and making wierd noises already after 2 days. The MSI one seems to be ok.
VRM's aren't really an issue like I thought they would be. Even on the X370 ASUS Crosshair.. it can handle 300A, but it's sweet spot is 200A for peak efficiency and the 3900X is only approaching 140A at peak load. At 220W.. the VRM is only running at 45-50C and that's with a water cooler without airflow. If you have an aircooler, the VRM's are further cooled. And the VRM's on that board aren't affected by temperature (temps don't affect their performance). It's just that if they run too hot, the heat puts extra stress on the capicitors nearby and can reduce their life. And for me, I always want a high end board to last at least 5 years.. preferably 10 years (as a hand me down to someone else). So temps are very important to me.. not for overclocking or bragging rights, but just to run cool and quiet and be reliable. That's why I always try to recommend to people to try and get the highest end board you can... because all of the minor components are usually of higher quality. I would also recommend ASUS in terms of BIOS, but it seems with Ryzen there is always complaints about the BIOS regardless of which board maker you chose. A BIOS update will fix one thing and break something else, and then 3 revisions later, it's finally smooth in all areas. Apparently Asrock is the worst for BIOS. But I do think there is a benefit in a high end X370 or X470 compared to a B350 or B450 board for example. If you want to blow out the caps/VRM after 2 years and throw it away, buy the cheapest you can find. But for me personally, I'm avoiding X570 like the plague, there's no way that chipset fan lasts 5-10 years inside of a warm dusty PC. If there's a X670 maybe it can be better, maybe they can relearn how to cool a 15W chip without needing a fan. But if they keep their current trend, it'll have 600A VRM and will have 3 chipset fans.
Based on everything I've seen (and it's been so much, but I could quote charts or whatever if I needed to).. the AMD roadmap is..
Zen (1000 series, 12nm, X370), Zen+ (2000 series, 12nm+, X470), Zen 2 (3000 series, 7nm, X570), Zen 2+ (4000 series, 7nm+, X670) and then that will be the end of the AM4 platform. The end of DDR4 memory support. If this occurs in this way, it falls inline with AMD saying they will support AM4 until 2020.
And then the 5nm processors will start the following year with AM5 platform, DDR5 memory etc. I assume it will be called the 5000 series but who knows. These things are subject to change.. but for now it seems if one is to guess, it's as good as any. I guess there's a chance they skip 7nm+, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that, where as there's been charts that do indicate that they are doing that. If it occurs this way, the 4000 series will be the ones to hold on to long term, because they'll hold their value on the used market the best, since they'll be the most powerful/efficient CPU's for AM4.
In terms of the VRM, I don't think there's anything controversial or risky. These processors are using even less power than expected. I was very worried about this a few weeks ago, I even bought some expensive thermal pads.. but if anything it's gone the other way. The 7nm node means that power consumption is reduced.. the clock speeds are less than expected, and the overclocking is extremely poor. It's pretty much a max overclock straight out of the box, and the power consumption isn't even very high. The 3900X is using the same power (or slightly less) as 2700X despite 4 more cores. Good for those with cheaper motherboards, bad for those chasing Intel higher clock speeds. Lower end cheap junky boards should be careful with 12 or 16 core parts, but 8 and 6 core parts are fine with pretty much any board (except the very cheapest but even those DO work). The chart lays it out perfectly in terms of colour codes, and if anything is actually a bit on the conservative side. The person who made that chart, their info correlates with what I had discovered in my own independent research.
The chipset is pretty irrelevant in terms of memory speeds. The chipset is more to due with Sata, USB etc. The memory is all about the CPU itself since it's related to the onboard memory controller. The IMC paired with the microcode that the BIOS is running. The 3000 series CPU has a big IMC improvement, and can handle 3200-3600 easily, regardless of whether it's X370 or B450 or X570. There is minimal performance gain going from X370 to X570. Maybe 3-5% at best. Sometimes the older chipset is actually faster in certain situations. There still needs to be verification of this, in the real world with lots of different board makers but these are the early indications. This was also the trend of X370 vs X470. There's teething problems with BIOS right now but those will be ironed out regardless of whether you are using X370, X470 or X570. All are struggling with bugs right now, but all will be ironed out in a few months, the same way they were on 1000 and 2000 series CPU's.
It's a good point mentioning the space of the flash ROM of the BIOS. It is definitely an issue and a lot of motherboard makers messed up (by accident, or deliberately to entice people to always buy the latest thing). Believe it or not, there's even some X570 boards that use 16MB BIOS capacity. What excuse can there be for that? It's a $1 part vs a $2 part, and since it was made during this year, they can't say they weren't aware of it. The X370 Asus Crosshair board I mentioned has this problem and I suspect Asrock Taichi X370 does as well. The X370 Taichi also has a problem of lower memory speeds that can't be fixed due to trace layout on the PCB. But it will work, as long as you don't buy super expensive RAM thinking you'll get high speeds. It also has the best VRM of any X370 board. The X470 Asus Crosshair board has 32MB BIOS and solves this problem. But the motherboard makers are working around this problem of limited BIOS capacity and 16MB BIOS will still work. They are trimming down the BIOS (MSI even made a Lite version that has an uglier UI). Some boards are losing RAID support, and also losing support from the very old CPU's. But if you don't use RAID and if you're looking at running a 2000 or 3000 series CPU, you won't be affected. It's an unfortunate situation and they are having to work to trim out the bloat.. but the motherboard will still be usable. It's just more work on the BIOS makers in order to squeeze things in and make them fit.
This has all been a hypothetical for me in the last month, I've watched a lot of Buildzoid videos trying to figure out how all of this works. But now since July 7, there's starting to be some real world examples and testing. We are in the habit of Intel for the last 10 years, and needing new motherboards every 2 years, but AMD is breaking that trend. And the consumer is benefiting from it. It's just a shame that the motherboard makers couldn't have thought things through a bit better. On X370 boards Gigabyte and MSI really cheaped out on VRMs. Pretty much all of them cheaped out on the BIOS ROM because they aren't used to trying to fit so many versions of CPUs on one BIOS. But just in the last 24 hours I've seen some videos running the 3700X on the cheapest A320 boards, and they do work. The 3600 could pretty much run on anything. A B450 Tomohawk is the recommendation a lot of people are doing for bang for buck plus solid performance. But for a high end board, it seems ASUS Crosshair VI (X370), most of the X470 boards, or any of the X570 boards will work, but the X570 boards are ridiculously over engineered and super expensive. The chipset fan doesn't work well either, except on the MSI boards. Because it's starved of airflow due to the GPU sitting right above it. And that's without factoring in dust that might accumulate in future years. It runs 10 degrees hotter and a lot louder, due to it's positioning and cramping of space. Some of them are vibrating and making wierd noises already after 2 days. The MSI one seems to be ok.
VRM's aren't really an issue like I thought they would be. Even on the X370 ASUS Crosshair.. it can handle 300A, but it's sweet spot is 200A for peak efficiency and the 3900X is only approaching 140A at peak load. At 220W.. the VRM is only running at 45-50C and that's with a water cooler without airflow. If you have an aircooler, the VRM's are further cooled. And the VRM's on that board aren't affected by temperature (temps don't affect their performance). It's just that if they run too hot, the heat puts extra stress on the capicitors nearby and can reduce their life. And for me, I always want a high end board to last at least 5 years.. preferably 10 years (as a hand me down to someone else). So temps are very important to me.. not for overclocking or bragging rights, but just to run cool and quiet and be reliable. That's why I always try to recommend to people to try and get the highest end board you can... because all of the minor components are usually of higher quality. I would also recommend ASUS in terms of BIOS, but it seems with Ryzen there is always complaints about the BIOS regardless of which board maker you chose. A BIOS update will fix one thing and break something else, and then 3 revisions later, it's finally smooth in all areas. Apparently Asrock is the worst for BIOS. But I do think there is a benefit in a high end X370 or X470 compared to a B350 or B450 board for example. If you want to blow out the caps/VRM after 2 years and throw it away, buy the cheapest you can find. But for me personally, I'm avoiding X570 like the plague, there's no way that chipset fan lasts 5-10 years inside of a warm dusty PC. If there's a X670 maybe it can be better, maybe they can relearn how to cool a 15W chip without needing a fan. But if they keep their current trend, it'll have 600A VRM and will have 3 chipset fans.
Darkbreeze
Retired Mod
- Jun 24, 2014
- 80,408
- 7,630
- 176,790
I'll take a read of your post later on. I have to, unfortunately, go get some work done right now. LOL.
- Jul 9, 2019
- 7
- 1
- 15
For the 3600, even the lowest boards like A320 are fine. The cheapest of the cheap with the crappiest VRMs. There's plenty of results around from lots of different sources but this video is quite concise about it, in terms of good testing and results in a short video.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF8EuEfKH3Q
Brief summary.. A320 vs X570 when running a 3600 CPU.
Much better price. Better Cinebench benchmark results. Better power consumption figures. Better gaming results (better 1% lows). Consistant average results, not one off. The VRM's on the cheap boards are fine for 6 cores as well. In some cases, they are actually more efficient (the X570 VRMs are really really overengineered and inefficient unless OC'ing 16 core CPU's). The X570 chipset also consumes 8W more at idle compared to other earlier chipsets. De8auer made a video about this..
View: https://youtu.be/qk3PD-4zPN0?t=815
Disclaimer, this is a bang for buck option for 6 core CPU's. This motherboard is not applicable for 12 or 16 core CPU's. But other older motherboards are running fine. And the 3900X (12 core) has been tested on the ASUS Crosshair Hero VI by specific users and is running just fine. The only issue in that case is BIOS bugs (cold boot bugs, RAM voltage bugs etc).. that will likely be ironed out in the next few months. Lots of bugs for all motherboard and CPU combos at the moment even for X570. There are a few bugs with the CPU's as well (regardless of the motherboard used), which will be ironed out with future AGESA updates. But at the same time, the power efficiency to performance ratio of the 3000 series CPU's are really strong, and the 3600 and 3700X are great budget options. Especially in the case of 3600 + an A320 motherboard.
To conclude, the older boards are running 3000 series chips just fine (as long as the right CPU is paired with the right VRM specs on the board). And in some cases like in that linked video, they are actually giving more performance with less power consumption. In a lot of cases, PCIe4.0 is working on ASUS boards as well, but it's said that AMD will be blocking this in future updates (doing their best to imitate Intel). But on the whole, AMD are creating a reality that must be completely alien to long term Intel users. Hence discussions/debates like this thread.
I have my own thoughts on some things to criticize about AMD since launch, but in the context of the video I linked.. it's bringing high performance to budget minded people, so overall.. I think this deserves some praise.
Brief summary.. A320 vs X570 when running a 3600 CPU.
Much better price. Better Cinebench benchmark results. Better power consumption figures. Better gaming results (better 1% lows). Consistant average results, not one off. The VRM's on the cheap boards are fine for 6 cores as well. In some cases, they are actually more efficient (the X570 VRMs are really really overengineered and inefficient unless OC'ing 16 core CPU's). The X570 chipset also consumes 8W more at idle compared to other earlier chipsets. De8auer made a video about this..
View: https://youtu.be/qk3PD-4zPN0?t=815
Disclaimer, this is a bang for buck option for 6 core CPU's. This motherboard is not applicable for 12 or 16 core CPU's. But other older motherboards are running fine. And the 3900X (12 core) has been tested on the ASUS Crosshair Hero VI by specific users and is running just fine. The only issue in that case is BIOS bugs (cold boot bugs, RAM voltage bugs etc).. that will likely be ironed out in the next few months. Lots of bugs for all motherboard and CPU combos at the moment even for X570. There are a few bugs with the CPU's as well (regardless of the motherboard used), which will be ironed out with future AGESA updates. But at the same time, the power efficiency to performance ratio of the 3000 series CPU's are really strong, and the 3600 and 3700X are great budget options. Especially in the case of 3600 + an A320 motherboard.
To conclude, the older boards are running 3000 series chips just fine (as long as the right CPU is paired with the right VRM specs on the board). And in some cases like in that linked video, they are actually giving more performance with less power consumption. In a lot of cases, PCIe4.0 is working on ASUS boards as well, but it's said that AMD will be blocking this in future updates (doing their best to imitate Intel). But on the whole, AMD are creating a reality that must be completely alien to long term Intel users. Hence discussions/debates like this thread.
I have my own thoughts on some things to criticize about AMD since launch, but in the context of the video I linked.. it's bringing high performance to budget minded people, so overall.. I think this deserves some praise.
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Darkbreeze
Retired Mod
- Jun 24, 2014
- 80,408
- 7,630
- 176,790
Sorry, but I wouldn't recommend that ANYBODY run an A320 board, no matter what CPU or what generation they are running. At least, not unless they ABSOLUTELY cannot budget a board in with a higher tiered chipset.
Will it work, maybe. Problem is, that much like every other generation, including the lesser 700 and 800 series AMD chipsets from AM3/3+ era, boards based on these lesser chipsets are generally garbage all the way around. And we all know the old saying pretty much holds true, garbage in, garbage out.
Sure, they might RUN your hardware, at least initially, but the chances of a failure on your board due to the much lower quality of ALL the components used to build it, are much higher than with even budget models from higher tiered chipset boards in most cases AND regardless of the fact that Zen2 exhibits a lower stock TDP than the previous generation due to it's smaller node, it's clock speeds are typically higher and there are more cores, so it's boost and PBO configurations dramatically eat up any margins in TDP.
Early results historically mean very little. I'd want to revisit this in a few months and see if boards that have been running full stock boost and PBO configurations are still doing as well after a couple of months of hammering away at the VRMs and MC. I suspect power delivery COULD become an issue later on. PCI 4.0 aside, AMD doesn't really care about selling motherboards (Although it's partners certainly do, so to some degree, so do they) which means the concerns they voiced have to be grounded in something other than simply wanting everybody to buy a new motherboard.
Either that, or they've simply become Intel and are so greedy now they are willing to simply bold faced lie to the general public and mask it in concern regarding the ability to conform to the newer standards. Possible, but I doubt it's as simple as just that.
It's easy to put a CPU in a board and say "See, it does fine".
There was a LOT of that happening when AMD released it's 9000 series AM3+ CPUs. Fast forward a month or two after launch and the crying and screaming had begun when motherboards started dying in droves and YET, these CPUs were not exceeding thermal margins. They were simply killing VRMs and chipsets because the quality was not sufficient to withstand the onslaught. I get it that this is a different beast, but when you couple high core counts with big boost features and aggressive voltage, you are going to end up with people who think that because they can run a 6/12 on a given board, that "Ryzen 3000" in general is fine to run on the same boards as well. It will happen, I assure you.
Will it work, maybe. Problem is, that much like every other generation, including the lesser 700 and 800 series AMD chipsets from AM3/3+ era, boards based on these lesser chipsets are generally garbage all the way around. And we all know the old saying pretty much holds true, garbage in, garbage out.
Sure, they might RUN your hardware, at least initially, but the chances of a failure on your board due to the much lower quality of ALL the components used to build it, are much higher than with even budget models from higher tiered chipset boards in most cases AND regardless of the fact that Zen2 exhibits a lower stock TDP than the previous generation due to it's smaller node, it's clock speeds are typically higher and there are more cores, so it's boost and PBO configurations dramatically eat up any margins in TDP.
Early results historically mean very little. I'd want to revisit this in a few months and see if boards that have been running full stock boost and PBO configurations are still doing as well after a couple of months of hammering away at the VRMs and MC. I suspect power delivery COULD become an issue later on. PCI 4.0 aside, AMD doesn't really care about selling motherboards (Although it's partners certainly do, so to some degree, so do they) which means the concerns they voiced have to be grounded in something other than simply wanting everybody to buy a new motherboard.
Either that, or they've simply become Intel and are so greedy now they are willing to simply bold faced lie to the general public and mask it in concern regarding the ability to conform to the newer standards. Possible, but I doubt it's as simple as just that.
It's easy to put a CPU in a board and say "See, it does fine".
There was a LOT of that happening when AMD released it's 9000 series AM3+ CPUs. Fast forward a month or two after launch and the crying and screaming had begun when motherboards started dying in droves and YET, these CPUs were not exceeding thermal margins. They were simply killing VRMs and chipsets because the quality was not sufficient to withstand the onslaught. I get it that this is a different beast, but when you couple high core counts with big boost features and aggressive voltage, you are going to end up with people who think that because they can run a 6/12 on a given board, that "Ryzen 3000" in general is fine to run on the same boards as well. It will happen, I assure you.
- Jul 9, 2019
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I wouldn't recommend using A320 either. I always like the highest end board possible, due to better VRM or more SATA ports (I like 8 personally).. or more USB ports on the back (no such thing as too many for random situations). It also helps to have future upgrade paths and be able to keep the same motherboard.
But the fact is.. it works. And it uses less power. And the CPU works more efficiently and produces better benchmark results. I didn't make the video, take it up with the video maker. He did his own testing, and drew his own conclusions. There's other budget options, like B450 for example. I would encorage anyone to shop around and weigh up all the benefits and downsides and if in doubt.. pay a little bit extra to ensure the board lasts at least 5 years.
But X570 has been a massive fail so far. Maybe B550 will be better (launching next year). So far, X470 is the best solution, in my own personal opinion for a generic recommendation.
Personally, I'm looking to build a system with 64GB RAM 3600Mhz C16 using 4 sticks and with future support for 12 and 16 core CPU's (I can't justify spending that much on a CPU right now, but buying one discounted in a few years would be cool).
In the short term I'll be using 3700X (was able to get it 10% off on launch day). So far, Crosshair Hero VI is my best option since it has T Topology RAM layout and has already been tested/proved to run really well with 4 sticks of the RAM I want to use. But if there's a problem (for whatever reason), I'll move up to X470 Crosshair VII (and lose 2 SATA ports and a PCIe express slot).
The main holdup is the BIOS, AMD has dropped the ball with the BIOS and AGESA microcode, and the motherboard makers are under big pressure to react but they've been put in a hard situation due to AMD's sloppiness and rushed release but I'm not really in much of a hurry. Some boards are ok, some have bugs.
I still have a perfectly fine Intel system to use in the meantime. I haven't had a single BSOD all year with this system and it's 5 years old. Have been with Intel for 10 years. For me, it's either 100% stability or bust, so I'm happy to wait it out.
My main concern with the switch to Ryzen is the BIOS sort of stuff. The little things.. I've had a really smooth experience for the last 10 years with Intel, and it's a slight concern that some of the smaller things might be neglected, with random problems like Windows sleep not behaving, or wierd boot/bios/RAM issues. There's an issue currently with high idle temps/consumption. But to be honest, I expect just as many issues going to AMD regardless of X370, X470 or X570. Intel have had their own problems over the years when new technology is introduced (when they get off their butt and actually innovate). AMD seems worse though due to a smaller budget and less market share. I expect AMD to eventually smooth out everything it just might take a few months. They were able to do that with 1000 series and 2000 series processors. But being a new adopter for anything AMD doesn't seem to be a very pleasurable experience. To use some blunt words, it's sort of putrid.
I wouldn't advise anyone to buy new right now, you're paying extra money for extra bugs. Just wait it out until later in the year when the bugs are reduced and the prices are dropped (during certain discount or holiday sales). Or buy the earlier generation for slashed prices (and all the bugs gone), after the launch of the new generation.
Not trying to be rude by way the way, I didn't really address your points directly. I just wanted to share my own experience in that I have a vested interest and a horse in this race. Some of the things you said may turn out to be true. It will be interesting to look back around November or after Christmas and see where everything shakes out. Despite my own thoughts on Intel's approach, I would pay for $100 extra if I new that the 5 year experience of using a CPU would be smooth and without any bugs or stability issues. But the thing that attracts me to the 3700X is that I will be able to encode videos in Handbrake at equal speed to a 9900K while also using less power and as someone who sometimes encodes video for weeks straight (24/7) that power savings is appreciated. I saw that as a big enough risk/benefit to jump over and give it a go.
But the fact is.. it works. And it uses less power. And the CPU works more efficiently and produces better benchmark results. I didn't make the video, take it up with the video maker. He did his own testing, and drew his own conclusions. There's other budget options, like B450 for example. I would encorage anyone to shop around and weigh up all the benefits and downsides and if in doubt.. pay a little bit extra to ensure the board lasts at least 5 years.
But X570 has been a massive fail so far. Maybe B550 will be better (launching next year). So far, X470 is the best solution, in my own personal opinion for a generic recommendation.
Personally, I'm looking to build a system with 64GB RAM 3600Mhz C16 using 4 sticks and with future support for 12 and 16 core CPU's (I can't justify spending that much on a CPU right now, but buying one discounted in a few years would be cool).
In the short term I'll be using 3700X (was able to get it 10% off on launch day). So far, Crosshair Hero VI is my best option since it has T Topology RAM layout and has already been tested/proved to run really well with 4 sticks of the RAM I want to use. But if there's a problem (for whatever reason), I'll move up to X470 Crosshair VII (and lose 2 SATA ports and a PCIe express slot).
The main holdup is the BIOS, AMD has dropped the ball with the BIOS and AGESA microcode, and the motherboard makers are under big pressure to react but they've been put in a hard situation due to AMD's sloppiness and rushed release but I'm not really in much of a hurry. Some boards are ok, some have bugs.
I still have a perfectly fine Intel system to use in the meantime. I haven't had a single BSOD all year with this system and it's 5 years old. Have been with Intel for 10 years. For me, it's either 100% stability or bust, so I'm happy to wait it out.
My main concern with the switch to Ryzen is the BIOS sort of stuff. The little things.. I've had a really smooth experience for the last 10 years with Intel, and it's a slight concern that some of the smaller things might be neglected, with random problems like Windows sleep not behaving, or wierd boot/bios/RAM issues. There's an issue currently with high idle temps/consumption. But to be honest, I expect just as many issues going to AMD regardless of X370, X470 or X570. Intel have had their own problems over the years when new technology is introduced (when they get off their butt and actually innovate). AMD seems worse though due to a smaller budget and less market share. I expect AMD to eventually smooth out everything it just might take a few months. They were able to do that with 1000 series and 2000 series processors. But being a new adopter for anything AMD doesn't seem to be a very pleasurable experience. To use some blunt words, it's sort of putrid.
I wouldn't advise anyone to buy new right now, you're paying extra money for extra bugs. Just wait it out until later in the year when the bugs are reduced and the prices are dropped (during certain discount or holiday sales). Or buy the earlier generation for slashed prices (and all the bugs gone), after the launch of the new generation.
Not trying to be rude by way the way, I didn't really address your points directly. I just wanted to share my own experience in that I have a vested interest and a horse in this race. Some of the things you said may turn out to be true. It will be interesting to look back around November or after Christmas and see where everything shakes out. Despite my own thoughts on Intel's approach, I would pay for $100 extra if I new that the 5 year experience of using a CPU would be smooth and without any bugs or stability issues. But the thing that attracts me to the 3700X is that I will be able to encode videos in Handbrake at equal speed to a 9900K while also using less power and as someone who sometimes encodes video for weeks straight (24/7) that power savings is appreciated. I saw that as a big enough risk/benefit to jump over and give it a go.
- Jul 9, 2019
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Not sure if you're asking me or the OP, but if its me.. I do already have the board, I bought it during a 20% off sale a month or so ago. But I'm ok with selling it used (or unused) and moving up to X470.. if a better option presents itself. So far in terms of RAM, it's speed with 4 sticks is superior to most other boards due to the trace layout. Most boards are daisy chain and favor 2 sticks, and when using 4 sticks the speed becomes handicapped (the trace lengths are unequal when using 4 slots). But if there's better option, I'm open to moving up to it. It looks like the BIOS situation is so bad with AMD right now, I'll have a month or two to see what results people get.
The power delivery on the x370 Crosshair iv motherboard was overkill at the time for any existing first gen Ryzen processor (Most likely due to future gen support requirements):
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcqu-9Ejf60
If you've already purchased that x370 motherboard and you plan to use the x3700 that has less power draw than it's high end predecessors, you'll be rest assured that you will have absolutely no power issues with that combo. The memory issues plagued by 300 series motherboards were resolved years ago with multiple bios updates. Just make sure your bios is updated and stick with a 14ms cas latency 2 x 8gb kit of 3200mhz Samsung b-die memory, as that is the max bandwidth supported for that motherboard.
If you've already purchased that x370 motherboard and you plan to use the x3700 that has less power draw than it's high end predecessors, you'll be rest assured that you will have absolutely no power issues with that combo. The memory issues plagued by 300 series motherboards were resolved years ago with multiple bios updates. Just make sure your bios is updated and stick with a 14ms cas latency 2 x 8gb kit of 3200mhz Samsung b-die memory, as that is the max bandwidth supported for that motherboard.
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- Jul 9, 2019
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I appreciate you explaining that in terms of vrm and power draw, but in terms of the max supported RAM by the motherboard.. people have tested higher speeds and have had success with that. This for example.. (there's more but this was the first one that I could find quickly)
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/cdrgnq/micron_edie_is_awesome_4x16gb_dr_3400mhz_14181432/
He was able to get 3400mhz @ C14.. but that was with Ryzen 1700 (first gen) and the main bottleneck there appears to be the integrated memory controller. As far as I know with the 3000 series, the memory controller is much improved and should be able to reach 3600mhz (with 4 sticks) with no problems. I've seen results like this in the last week when using this motherboard, I just can't remember the links off the top of my head.
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/cdrgnq/micron_edie_is_awesome_4x16gb_dr_3400mhz_14181432/
He was able to get 3400mhz @ C14.. but that was with Ryzen 1700 (first gen) and the main bottleneck there appears to be the integrated memory controller. As far as I know with the 3000 series, the memory controller is much improved and should be able to reach 3600mhz (with 4 sticks) with no problems. I've seen results like this in the last week when using this motherboard, I just can't remember the links off the top of my head.
If it were me i'd stick with a 3200mhz kit, due to the fact that the 3700x isn't high end and the detailed hardware specifications of the motherboard's supported bandwidth. However if I was upgrading to a 3900x or higher using that specific motherboard, i'd definitely look into that possibility of utilizing higher memory bandwidth to make use of the motherboard's full potential. For the 3700x I just don't think it's necessary for most use cases.
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I've looked into those possibilities and it seems like in certain situations (and people's testing) , 3200mhz C14 is sometimes more preferable to 3600mhz C16 due to lower latency. In time, I would like to test this first hand (once there is a stable BIOS to make the process easier and less stressful).
Darkbreeze
Retired Mod
- Jun 24, 2014
- 80,408
- 7,630
- 176,790
The latency issue is completely numerical. Sometimes is is actually faster to use a lower frequency kit with lower CAS latency, other times the frequency wins out if the CAS is higher so long as it isn't TOO high. True latency, is what you are looking for, based on this forumula offered by Computronix.
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